SANgate unveils migration appliance

Aiming to simplify the process of migrating data from one storage system to another, startup SANgate Systems Inc. on Monday introduced a new appliance. Designed to assist service providers and system integrators, the new device is the first of a number of data mover technologies expected from SANgate.

The new portable appliance, dubbed SANblaster S1000, is an enterprise-class network device that sits between switches and storage systems in a SAN and carries out intelligent storage applications such as snapshot and mirroring, said SANgate CEO Patrick Courtin.

According to Courtin, the device is designed to assist enterprises with large storage systems in a SAN to deal with copying and writing data to a new storage system and managing that process.

"The process of migrating data from a source to a target is not easy," said Courtin. "And it is very cumbersome when the source and target are not from the same vendor." Courtin explained that mapping problems are common and migrating a system with multiple hosts is very difficult.

He added that SANblaster S1000 is designed for those enterprises looking to move more than 500GB of data, which is common when three to four hosts are connected to the storage.

"There are no tools out here to do data migration simply," said Courtin. "There are good tools for Solaris and Unix but it gets unwieldy with multiple hosts."

Storage systems vendors such as HDS and EMC offer tools to do such data migration; however, most are designed to work primarily with the vendor's own systems.

SANgate, based in Southborough, Mass., is working on a second appliance that will work with mainframe storage systems. Courtin said that the product is in trials currently and will support AIX, HP-UX, and other open-source operating systems.

The SANblaster S1000 supports Windows and Solaris operating systems and enables both Fibre Channel and SCSI connectivity. The SANblaster S1000 is generally available now and starts at US$60,000.

Copyright 2018 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.